The Zelda & Paul Gitlin Literary Prize

Purpose: To award an annual prize to the person judged to have written the best scholarly article on Thomas Wolfe, published during the preceding calendar year.

Rules and Procedures: The selection of the yearly prize winner is made by the Zelda & Paul Gitlin Literary Prize Committee, which consists of three members appointed for three-year terms by the president of the Thomas Wolfe Society. At the end of the calendar year, the chair requests that the other two committee members send their top three choices for the prize, ranked in order of preference. The chair adds his or her own choices to these and then reports the results to the other two committee members. Committee members are ineligible to receive the prize during their term of service. Also ineligible is any article that has received or is receiving the Society’s Thomas Wolfe Student Essay Prize.

The Zelda & Paul Gitlin Literary Prize Committee encourages Wolfeans to bring to the chair’s attention any article on Thomas Wolfe that is of significant scholarly interest. Meritorious articles appearing in journals that might not come to the attention of the chair are of special interest.

Chair of the committee for the 2016 prize (awarded in 2017) was Terry Roberts; also on the committee were Michael Curtis Houck and Caroline Keizer.

The committe for the 2017 prize (which will be awarded in 2018) is Michael Curtis Houck (chair), Caroline Keizer, and another member yet to be named.

Sponsor: Originally sponsored by the late Paul Gitlin, then Administrator of the Estate of Thomas Wolfe.

Prize: $250.

Announcement of Winner: At the awards banquet of the annual Thomas Wolfe Society meeting.